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Updated: July 15, 2025
Everyone in the island knew his grandfather, and he exchanged a few words with them all, but ever maintaining a gravity which imposed respect in others without alienating them; but as for being his friend! Don Horacio may have had business relations with the Chueta relating to loans needed for propping up his fortune in its decline.
In vain had revolutions been made in Spain, in vain had liberal laws been passed which recognized the equality of all Spaniards; the Chueta when he passed on to the Peninsula was a citizen like other people, but in Majorca he was a reprobate, a kind of pest who could marry none but his own kindred.
Pablo Vails did not write because he was angry with Febrer for going away without bidding him good-bye. Still he was a good friend, and he was busy disentangling Jaime's business affairs. He had a diabolical cleverness for that sort of thing a Chueta, in fact! He would write more later. Two months had gone by without the arrival of another letter.
The Chuetas of the present time, the only Majorcans of recognized Jewish origin, were the descendants of the last to be converted, the offspring of the families persecuted by the Inquisition. To be a Chueta, to spring from the street of the Silversmiths, which by antonomasia is called "the street," is the greatest disgrace which can happen to a Majorcan.
"And here is where I come in, young Garau: I, the reprobate, the Chueta, the long-tailed, who desire to be reverenced and adored by you as if you were Providence himself." Finally the practical man, the enemy of useless words, fulfilled his promise, and the style of the letter became concise, with a commercial dryness.
His ancestors had burned the ancestors of Valls; let him not forget that! But the good must distinguish themselves from the bad in some way, and so he, the reprobate, the Chueta, the heretic hated by everybody, had responded to this lack of friendship by busying himself with Jaime's affairs.
Then she saw that everything remained as usual, that she alone had been stirred by this stupendous news, so startling as to change the order of all existence. "Señor!... Señor!... Señor! A Chueta! An apostate Jewess!" She grasped the empty cup and the remnants of the bread, and ran to take refuge in the kitchen. After hearing such horrors in this house she felt afraid.
It was one of his most loyal friends, Captain Pablo Valls. Pablo Valls was known throughout all Palma. When he seated himself on the terrace of a café on the Paseo del Borne a compact circle of listeners would form around him, smiling at his forceful gestures and at his loud voice, which was ever incapable of discreet tones. "I am a Chueta, and what of that? A Jew of the Jews!
In Majorca they still governed with a strong hand; he said it, he, the Chueta. In other lands, perhaps not. Febrer experienced deep annoyance as he recalled his mistakes and his worries. Accursed dead! Humanity could never be happy and free until they should cast off their power. "Pablo, let us kill the dead!"
The rich Chueta pursed his lips, rounding them like the mouth of a trumpet, and drew in the air with a disagreeable rattle. Like all sick people he was eager to talk, and his sentences were long drawn out from a combination of stammering and pauses which left him with palpitating chest and eyes aloft, as if he were about to die of asphyxia. An atmosphere of uneasiness pervaded the dining-room.
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